Beijing Subway

Beijing Subway Reviews

I learnt a travel tip on a recent visit to Beijing in February 2012. I used my ipod touch to take photos of the chinese place names with english subtitles and stored them in my ipod photo album. When I needed to go somewhere I just thumbed through my album, found the placename and show the guy at the ticket booth or the bus driver and he would see the chinese writing and dispatch the required ticket and point in the general direction etc. Worked a treat. Places like, the Police station, Hospitals, banks, Restaurants. ATM machines, I took photos of and stored them for later use. Be sure to include a photo of your own Hotel name so you can get home after a day's sightseeing etc. Safe travels.

I'm a fan of Subways and use it rather than a taxi, but in Beijing you definitely go better by taking a cab instead of the Subway.

Main reasons are:

-The stations are pretty far from each other, so when you are somewhere in between, you have to walk for ages to find the next station.

-You always have to transfer multiple times. For example if you want to go from the city core (e.g. Tiananmen East) to the Olympic Green, you will have to take Line 1 to Dongdan (2 Stops), transfer to Line 2 to Shaoyaoju (8 Stops), then Line 10 to Beitucheng (2 Stops) and finally Line 8 to Olympic Green (2 Stops). Hell...Theres no diagonal Line, everything just goes straigt east, west, south and north, that makes it so unflexible. Woudlnt be too bad, if there was more stations and more lines.

-Its always really cold and drafty inside the trains. During summer-time its extremly hot and humid outside and when you enter a train its so cold that you directly catch a cold because of being sweaty.

But there are also some positives:

-Its easy to get a ticket from the Touchscreen Vending-Machines, although not as easygoing as in Shanghai

-Really cheap

If you have a station nearby, thats good. If not you better look out for a taxi before trying to find the next station. :) Just take a taxi, its cheap and much more comfortable. Around rush hour everything will be crowded as hell, but there you might go better by using the Subway, cause to be stuck in a traffic jam can take a while and the taxameter runs :)

Hmmm I had never taken a subway in my life till we went to Beijing, and we found it super easy and cheap to take. We had not difficulty in understanding it and after that, we took it everywhere. Our only regret was the day before we took cabs and got ripped off or couldn't get a cab to take us to one place and ended up waiting 45 mins before a cab would finally take us where we wanted to go, and that was ONLY after stumbling upon a taxi stand. And they are building the subway to extend to the airport too from what I understand, which will be fantastic.

Yeah, driving the wrong way. On only two occasions (of many) I could tell they did that on purpose. I always make sure I know the name or number of the district or neighbourhood or a nearby landmark and tell them. That is the very least they should know. I always ask before we drive off if they know where it is.
But Beijing is not unique... In Milan I had a major argument with the taxi driver who on purpose drove first direction of Malpensa airport while I was very clear in that I had to be in Linate airport. It took half an hour longer, and I wanted to pay only two third of the meter price. He became very aggressive until I took my mobile phone and told him I call the police NOW. Then he accepted.
Arriving in Chicago O'Hare I tried to find a taxi to get me to the outward suburb of Schaumburg. Many did not want to take me there (I guess because they have to drive back empty). One said he didn't know how to get there. Bad luck for him because I had been there many times so I told hem I would show him how to get there, then he had no excuse anymore.